It has become somewhat of a cliche nowadays to talk about the importance of being consciously aware of death in order to fully live. However, there is undoubted truth that we are all mortal beings, and that knowing this in our bones gives us impetus to seize each day with gentle hands.
We my forget that in some way, we frequently die throughout our lives – not in the sense of physically leaving, but in the sense that we are not the same person that we were a few years ago, and we are certainly not a baby or a child anymore. As a parent, I see my children changing ~ they too have left behind the baby-selves that they were.
Some while ago, the young daughter of a dear friend of mine suddenly died. I was honoured and inspired seeing how my friend held herself through such a deep and profound experience.
I saw the power of being with both the immanent and the transcendent. In other words, the immanent deep sadness and grief and mourning and the shock of a child dying so young. The loss of her physical presence every day…. the loss of what might have been in terms of her future life.
And also, the transcendent – the sense that there is some bigger mystery, that there is meaning to what happened, that she gives innumerable gifts to those who knew her, and that what most makes us who we are can never die.
The celebration of her life was fully of the paradox of both of these – many people cried and sobbed and many tears were shed. Deeply painful and sad words were spoken. AND everyone I spoke to said that this dear little girl, in her short life, had given them gifts that they had never before experienced. The quality of her presence, her love of life, her deep acceptance and joy whatever was happening, and the way she looked into one’s soul…. all these were so strongly present at the ceremony. There were also coloured butterflies all around, as well as children playing and bubbles being blown.
I experienced, in a way that I hadn’t before, the deeply bittersweet paradox of life. That we are here; we are mortal beings; we love; and at some point we all die. I thought of the haunting words of one of my favourite songs, Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now”; “and something’s lost, and something’s gained, in living every day.”
Each day we leave behind the day before, the person we were, and each day, we become … and become.. and become….. and yet there is something eternal, something unchanging about us that lasts thoughout our lives, and some believe, after our bodies have left.
Perhaps we feel disbelief that the person has gone because really, no-one who was once here can ever go. Both in the sense of living on in the hearts and minds of those knew them, but also in a sense that how can something that has been, ever not be?
My dad left his body six years ago, on Father’s Day in the U.K. Ever since I was a child I had been terrified of my parents dying. Yet by the age of 40, which was 2 weeks before he died, the fear had gone. He was at his home, with my mum caring for him, and I asked him to stay around for my 40th birthday. That day he stopped eating, and two weeks later he gently left, with me and my mum and my daughter (then aged six-and-a-half) with him. It was a powerful experience. Reading books about near death experiences, I was inspired to suggest to him to go towards the light, to those who loved him…. and as he breathed his last breaths, there was not fear, but alongside sadness there was also a sense of excitement at the next stage of his journey.
I was also grateful that we chose to keep his body in the house for a couple of days, to really say goodbye to his physical form. It was as clear as day to me that after that last breath, “he” had gone… his body was still there, but the spark that made him uniquely him had left…. in my beliefs, to something More.
After he died, I mourned, I felt sad, I missed him, and still do, and yet alongside that came a great joy in life, a time to really seize life and make the most of each moment. For example, at the celebration of his life, I spoke much about him and what he loved, in front of people whom I had never dared to be so real with. I became more than I had been through that experience.
And I think we have that choice, many times. For example, I have experienced many deaths – two divorces, a partner having an affair, miscarriage, being left for another woman ~ and yet with each of those things I became more. I equally believe that stepping into joy and wanted experiences facilitates our growing, but I think there is more of a choice with painful experiences. We can let ourselves become bitter and jaded and cynical, or we can allow them to open our hearts to the incredible bittersweet nature of being a human being.
And yes, that is what I experienced again, with the death of this little girl. I wad deeply inspired to step up, to do what I have dreamed to do, to live life more than I have been willing to do. The day after the ceremony I painted a huge 8 foot heart on my kitchen wall. There was a sense of *#@% it, I am just going to do it… a sense of not waiting to do what I love to do… and the painting is the most beautiful one I have ever done…..
Yes, so what I come away with is remembering the paradox – that we live as finite human beings, and that we are much more more than that, and death cannot take that away.
What would you do, who would you be, if you fully lived each day with this bittersweet joy?